


Slice of Life snippet

by VoyageBoots



Series: Clearing out my story files [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Black Markets, Condoms, Gen, Medical does not get paid enough, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 05:44:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5615962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoyageBoots/pseuds/VoyageBoots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nurse Nora Robertson would love to know who she ended up being the ringleader of Atlantis's black market for condoms. She suspects it has something to do with the night 20 of them had gotten smashed in the mess off someone’s moonshine one night, but she knows it has more to do with the fact that while everyone else shared the most embarrassing dirt on their teammates, her collection of stories of embarrassing injuries stayed private.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a snippet of a slice of life on Atlantis that was cut off from Earth. It was part of a POV outsider challenge if I am remembering correctly. It's more just notes on a story idea than a story but it is amusing all the same.

There’s less sex than one might think in Atlantis. For an outpost this size, there’s plenty of people but between disaster from the terrors of the Pegasus galaxy (Wraith, Ori, Replicators) to disaster from within (sinking the city, that month where no one had hot water) not many have the time to get it up. Plus, after spending a month without hot water with these people, the attractiveness decreases. And no, absolutely no one, wants the honor of being the first to discover a new STD.  
  
It would appear too that the ancestors had less time for sex too. For all their great technology they never seemed to have discovered double beds, let alone queen or king size. Too much focus on Ascension and denying bodily pleasures or so the theories go. One of the science departments includes a married couple, the Washburnes, and the fight they’d have over choosing separate rooms or trading their last snickers bar to the machinist’s team for help getting a second (twin sized) bed was legend. At least, among the nursing staff who’d done the resulting stitches.  
  
After being cut off from Earth, everything’s value increases. Due to limited space in the loads from the Stargate everyone had been limited in what they could bring. One backpack or suitcase to be carried on them, and one crate. Uniform scrubs took up most of Nora Robertson’s allotted space, two paperback novels carefully wedged amongst socks, shampoo, and a few other items. It had been weird, to pack everything she owned into storage or one box to come with. Sometimes she wonders what’ll happen to her storage locker now that they are not coming back. SGC had the details on it, maybe the backpay she’s probably never getting will be put toward it. More often Nora wondered what she was going to do when her shampoo ran out and left her permanently on the homemade Altean kind.  
  
Most everything had become shared too, her lonely 2 novels now part of Atlantis’s lending collection, and new books in their place on her desk. Sergeant Jenning’s Cosmo collection was the most shared book/magazine, someone could almost always be found with one in the mess. The intricate system of scheduling who got which book next swiftly became more complex than the duty rosters. But nothing could surpass the details involved in sorting out the condom supply.  
  
The medical station was equipped with generic brands for most items, as well as stockpiles of drugs they couldn’t afford to run low on. Which made it amusing to unpack and discover the crate consisting only of condoms and latex gloves. Granted there were more gloves obviously than condoms but it was still amusing. (“Like a weird fetish box” Joes laughed).  
  
Granted, most people who thought they’d be getting lucky brought their own condoms. But as it would turn out, that was not that many. Granted, when getting ready to take the biggest step for mankind it was hard to remember toothpaste much less incidentals. And so when they got cut off from Earth, it didn’t take long to realize what they had in the med station was it. Nora was off duty when the discovery was made, but it was a good 4 days long discussion of what should be done with medical’s stash of condoms. (dispense as normal, ignore the stockpile types? They’re going to blackmarket them, or announce the stash and let it be a free for all? When was everyone ever all on base to be fair enough) In the end, the decision was made to dispense them evenly to all base personnel, with the acknowledgement that this was it, and a refresher course on all the known Earth diseases they prevented, along with the speculation that Pegasus might well have its own, and hope for the best. It came out to 3 per person, random allocation of sizes. Nora did not envy Carson who had the privilege of handing them out to the senior staff.  
  
Nora would love to know who she ended up being the ringleader of the blackmarket for condoms. She suspects it has something to do with the night 20 of them had gotten smashed in the mess off someone’s moonshine one night, but she knows it has more to do with the fact that while everyone else shared the most embarrassing dirt on their teammates, her collection of stories of embarrassing injuries stayed private. (For the record, the title holder is the trifecta of a marine, a biologist, and one of the cooks who inadvertently played human dominos starting with a roller skate and ending with a freefall off a balcony in the ocean below. If they ever make contact with Earth again and Earth hasn’t written them all off as dead, Nora likes to think she’d buy them all real dominos as their prize).  
  
    Radek approached her in the beginning. He had his hands full with the underground Earth food trade and no desire to branch out. “Sex yes? It is boring to negotiate, even more so when the details are wishing to be kept secret.” With his help they cobble together the weirdest website to be put on the network yet, craigslist solely for condoms. Nora’s the only one who can see details, and make changes. In the event something happens to Nora, she’s left passwords encoded off the network for Radek, and after him, Sargent Jennings. It’s the weirdest chain of command she’s seen yet. Interested parties come see her to register their username, she grants them access to the forum. People there can then anonymously haggle for their desired item. Upon agreeing, both will separately contact her with their half the trade. It works well. Economists could write papers on the intricacy though, periods after certain-death have been avoided see spikes in demand, sudden decisions cost one more than weeks of careful haggling. For those who graciously give back their condoms to medical, Carson keeps 1 in 2, just in case, and gives the rest to Nora to trade for treats to be shared amongst the whole department. Services get traded too, though the anonymity of that is harder, usually Nora gets the joy of informing them who they have just sealed the deal with. (The look on McKay’s face when he found out that a lowly marine was the genius who promised to increase hits coffee pots output/portion of beans in exchange for McKay’s second condom was hilarious. Apparently living in warzone’s does teach one how to maximize coffee pots yields…)  
  
    It should also probably be noted that the lesbian couples clean up in this arrangement. But more importantly, the 6 condoms the married couple put up for trade (being married, clean and monogamous they see no need to keep them) earns them 5 snickers bars, one of which does in fact get a welder to detach a bed from the wall of atlantis and weld it to their twin bed. They are very happy. Their neighbors? Not so much.  
  
    Having settled the debate of what to do with our accidently secret condom stash downtown in Medical turns to speculating what will happen when the supplies inevitably run out. Nora’s almost positive Radek’s kept all 3 of his, just waiting for that very day to clean up on goods and services. The craiglist condom server has its own list of theories, the most popular including:  
  
    “Maybe we’ll all turn into monks and start planning routes to ascension ourselves.”  
“Maybe the ancients never meant to turn toward ascension but just ran out of supplies during wraith sieges”  
“Maybe we’ll all just get really superb at masturbation.”  
  
    But what really happened? Atlanteans became known in two galaxies for their oral sex skills. Turns out some of that advice in the Cosmo collection was actually valid. (Sadly, the wall of the rec room dedicated to voting and tallying experiences with those tips, was removed soon after Dr. Weir noticed it, when showing a delegation leader around. The resulting explanation was well worth the hassle of moving it somewhere more discreet  
  
End.


	2. Christmas Box Tale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holidays in Pegasus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just more snippet notes.

Christmas box tale

            Each person accepting shipment to Atlantis received the Christmas letter. Well the non denominational intended birthday substitute letter, but still everyone called it the Christmas letter. It was pretty straightforward – one shoebox not exceeding these dimensions, nothing perishable or potentially hazardous, modeled off Earth charity drives. It was up to everyone if they wanted to fill it themselves or let friends or family do it. Nora’s co-workers had caught her letter and stolen it before she could say yay or nay, Christmas was going to be weird.

            Christmas came and went in a blaze of wraith and other trouble, and no boxes appeared. Some thought maybe the shoeboxes hadn’t shipped when they got cut off, the deadline was before departure, but maybe not shipped.

            So it was a big surprise when on the one year anniversary of Atlantis, shoeboxes appeared in the mess under a weird alien tree. They sat there all the way to the weekend, when everyone was off special and then Christmas was had.

(Nora’s coworkers included condoms, bootleg DVDs, nail polish, crayons & rolled up coloring book, 2 tubes of toothpaste, funky socks, a mix tape, mini bags of chips and a children’s fake doctor kit. The toothpaste was her favorite.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real story is what happened when the tampon supply ran out. 
> 
> Google the possible tall tale about the engineers who thought a female astronaut might need 40 tampons for the short space journey...

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus Story ideas:  
> Radek’s 3 condoms: 1 went to dinner for two on a balcony, 1 cleaned out the market resulting in massive favors owed, and the last – well it went to further sealing the Zelneka-Roberts treaty.
> 
> Elizabeth and explaining the strange culture of the Atlanteans to the delegate from Earth
> 
> Married couples other stories
> 
> Mckay, marine and coffee pot
> 
> Are they pranking me? Lowly intern packs the crate of gloves and condoms.
> 
> Jennings tales of Cosmo hoarding


End file.
